A DAY AT THE RACES: A betting horse racing game
REQUIREMENTS: Windows 3.1
VGA
mouse
Windows-supported sound card preferred
hard drive (0.85 Megabytes required)
INSTALLATION:
A Day At the Races is installed from DOS, but played only under
Windows 3.1
(Before beginning the installation program, be sure that the
Windows subdirectory is included in your system path. To check
for its presence, type "path" and press <ENTER> at the DOS
prompt. If it is not there, it should be at least temporarily
added to install this program. This can be done by typing
"path c:\windows" where "c" is the drive, and "windows" is
the subdirectory where the Windows files are located.)
To Install A Day At the Races:
- insert disk in drive B:
- type 'B:' and press <ENTER>
- at the 'B:\>' prompt, type install, and press <ENTER>
(NOTE: Depending on the size of the floppy disks used,
your computer may use drive A: instead of B:)
- The program will ask for the destination path. For
the default pathname of C:\HORSE, just press <ENTER>.
To install the program in a different subdirectory, or
on a different drive, type the path name as in the
following examples:
C:\RACES or
D:\HORSE
- the installation program will then create the directory,
and copy files from the floppy disk. If there is not
enough room on your hard drive to copy and expand all of
the files, the installation program will give you an
ERROR mesage and exit. You need to erase enough files
on your hard drive to make room, and then start the
installation program again.
NOTE: The installation program will exit with an ERROR
message if any of the necessary files on the installation
disk have been erased.
- Once the files have been copied, the installation program
will create the program group and program item. Following
the instructions on the screen, click on OK, then
double-click on the Program Manager icon at the bottom of
the screen. Now you will see the Horse icon.
Double-click on it to start the program. If the installation
program reported a successful installation, but the Horse
icon does not appear, your system's path may not contain the
Windows subdirectory. In this case, you may create your own
under File/New menu or temporarily add Windows to the
systems path and reinstall the program. See your Windows
documentation for more information on creating your own
program group and program item.
STARTING A NEW RACE:
Races may be run without any of the four player betting,
or with only some of the players betting. To run a
race, select the Race/They're Off! menu option.
To bet on a race, a player must first select a player
number from the "Player" menu. That player number will be
highlighted below the race track. If an account is empty
no bet may be made by that player. (If all accounts are
empty, you will be asked if you wish to play another
game.) Then select an item from the "Wager", "Horse", and
"Finish" menus, in any order. All three menus must be
chosen before the race can be run. For the shareware
version only the "Wager" and "Horse" menus must be chosen.
The "Wager" menu will allow you to select an amount to be
bet. Choose one of the preselected amounts, or use the
"Other" option to select a different amount, up to $9999.
If you choose an amount greater than that in your account,
the wager will be reset to the account amount. If you
started to place a bet, and then decided not to bet after
all, Select the "Other" option under "Wager", and enter 0,
or a negative number. Your bet will be cleared.
The "Horse" menu will allow you to select one horse. The
odds are shown next to the horses on the bottom of the
screen, and influence the horse's performance. For the
shareware version only horses #1 and #2 may be selected for
a wager.
From the "Finish" menu, select the position in which you
think the horse will finish. The "Win" option is for a first
place finish, "Place" for second and "Show" for third. A
"Place" or "Show" ticket on the winning horse pays, but at
a lower rate than a ticket to "Win". The same holds for a
"Show" ticket on the horse finishing in second.
Repeat the betting process as many times as you wish for the
four players. Before a race begins, players may change their
bets.
Finally, to run the race, select the "They're Off!" option
from the "Race" menu. This option will work at any time
except when a wager has been started but is incomplete (You
must select an item from each of the "Wager", "Horse" and
"Finish" menus to complete a wager.)
RESET RACE
Before a player is selected, and betting begun, the
"Reset Race" option in the "Race" menu allows you to change
the horses and their odds up to three times per race.
Selecting a player number, however, resets the race,
if it hasn't been reset already, and now, the race may
not be reset using the "Reset Race" option.
INQUIRY:
Every so often, an inquiry will be made. Sometimes in
an inquiry, the winning horse is disqualified.
MILLIONAIRES
If one or more players become a "millionaire" they've won
the game. You will be asked if you wish to play again.
If you do, all accounts will be reset to $100.
SOUND:
Choose the menu options to turn the voices on and off.
The dimmed option is the one that is currently activated,
and hence, cannot be chosen. Turning voices on and off
may be done at any time during the game.
NOTE: If you have a microphone hooked up to your
computer you can make the game even more fun by
recording your own voice messages. Use the Sound
Recorder (which is an Accessory under Windows 3.1 to
record voices. See your Windows 3.1 documentation on
how to do this.)
The voices are in files with a .WAV extension. Open
one of these files using the Sound Recorder. Play
it, and then record your own message, saving it to that
file. WARNING: The file names must remain the same.
The program opens files with specific names to play
during the game. Be sure to delete any blank space
before or after the actaul voice message using the Edit
commands. Otherwise the program will spend time playing
back files containing blank spaces, which may be large.
Eliminating blank spaces will also decrease the file size.
SPEED
The menu options for speed will cause the race to become
slower or faster. Choose the time according to your
preference. Initially, the speed is set to average.
A "Fast" race usually takes about five seconds, an
"Average" race about one minutes, and a "Slow" race
about two minutes. The dimmed option is the one that
is currently activated, and hence, cannot be chosen.
Changing the speed may be done only before or after a
race.
QUIT
The "Quit" menu allow you to exit the game at the end of
any race.
HELP
The "Instructions" option of the Help menu shows a summary
of this file on screen.
PRINTING THIS FILE:
This file may be printed by typing (in DOS):
print readme.txt
TO ORDER:
For the complete version of this program, send a
check for $9.95 to:
DiNo Software
Box 362
Lafayette Hill, PA 19444
Please indicate "A Day At the Races", or "Horse".
Also indicate 5.25" or 3.5" disk.